In the shipment of a wide variety of materials and articles of manufacture, a pallet load of goods often is accumulated and placed on a wooden skid or pallet such that it may be picked and moved by a standard forklift truck. The load is secured to the pallet by means of tensioned high strength steel or plastic strapping passing over the load and down around the pallet. Material which is shipped in this manner spans the gamut from fine paper to printed products such as newspapers, advertising inserts in magazines, to boxed, cartoned or otherwise packaged goods, such as bottles, cans, and boxes. The range of different goods and applications handled in this manner is virtually limitless. In each case, the load must be protected both from the force of the tensioned strapping itself passing over the edges of the load and damage from knocking, denting, and abrasion with adjacent loads or with the truck or railway car in which the load is shipped.
Protection of the load has been provided in the prior art by forming a wooden frame having a length and width generally corresponding to the length and width of the load. The wooden frame is placed on top of the load and the strapping passed over the edges. The use of wood has a number of disadvantages including the accumulation of dirt and the presence of moisture which can transfer to the load. Moreover, wood is heavy increasing the shipping weight, bulky taking considerable room to store, unwieldy making it hard to handle, and expensive. Further, wood frames can fracture or splinter when dropped, particularly when dropped on one corner. Fracturing or splintering of the wood frame can make it unusable or potentially damaging to the load.
Some shippers have substituted the use of rigid, preformed paperboard angles for the wood frames. In this application, laminated paperboard which is glued, treated, and formed into rigid right angles is either glued or stapled into a frame which fits down around the top of the skid load. A single sheet of paperboard may be interposed between this frame and the top of the load to provide protection to the top of the load. The strapping is then passed over the right angle to secure the load to the skid. This particular form of corner protection has advantages over the use of a wood frame in that it cushions the load edges against hard knocks and strap indentation, replaces expensive lumber, and provides for some protection to the top side edge of the load. On the other hand, the use of such paperboard angles has a number of disadvantages in comparison to the present invention in that additional labor is required to form the angles into a frame and handling problems are encountered in moving and placing that frame about the top of the skid load. All in all, such angles are relatively unwieldy to assemble and to place on the load and require additional labor.